Richard Childress is perhaps best known as the owner who oversaw six of Dale Earnhardt’s record-tying seven championships in NASCAR’s top series. Childress’ race teams have won 11 championships and 184 races overall in NASCAR competition, including two victories each in the Daytona 500 and Brickyard 400. In 2010, Richard Childress Racing will field three cars in NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series, driven by Kevin Harvick, Jeff Burton and Clint Bowyer, respectively, starting with this Sunday’s season-opening Daytona 500.
In addition to being one of NASCAR’s most successful team owners, Childress is also an accomplished hunter and dedicated conservationist. He’s hunted all over the world and works actively with such groups as the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation. In 2009, Childress was elected to his first term on the NRA Board of Directors.
With the start of the 2010 Sprint Cup season just days away, Childress was gracious enough to take the time to talk with us about his hunting career and work in wildlife conservation.
Q: Who introduced you to hunting? What can you tell us about your first hunt?
RC: My step dad introduced me to hunting when I was probably 7 or 8 years old. We went squirrel hunting and rabbit hunting. I had a little 410 shotgun that I used, and that’s the first gun I can ever remember shooting. And then for squirrels we’d use a single-shot bolt .22. The .22 was probably my very first gun.
Q: You are an accomplished big game hunter. What are some of the different species and locations that you’ve hunted?
RC: The very first what I would call “big game hunt” that I went on was back in 1985. I went to British Columbia hunting grizzly bear and moose. I wasn’t successful on that trip. It was really a tough hunt because we were snowed in for like 14 days. It would have given anybody a reason to say, ‘Hey, this stuff isn’t for me.’
I’ve been to Africa like eight or nine times. I’m going back again this year. I’ve been to Tajikistan, Turkey and Mongolia. I’ve got the Big Five, the sheep Grand Slam, and the North American 29. I just enjoy the outdoors and the hunting aspect of it. It’s really been very rewarding.
When I quit driving a race car in 1981—that’s when I retired and put Dale Earnhardt in the car—I needed something to keep my adrenaline going. So I started hunting more and more, and like I said I stepped out in 1985 and did my first hunt for what I would call big game, although I hunted deer and things like that before. Since then I’ve hunted in a lot of places.
Q: Is there any specific type of hunting or place to hunt that you like best?
RC: I really enjoy Africa because there are so many different species all over the continent. I like the Maasai Land in Tanzania of all the places I’ve been in Africa. Just seeing the culture of the people, how they live, how they survive. I like going all over these countries. It’s great just to mix with the people. We’re going to do a bongo hunt—we had it planned for this year and we may move it back until 2011. But I am taking my two grandsons to Africa this year and might let them shoot an elephant. They’re 17 and 19, and by the time they go they’ll be 18 and 20.
When I was hunting in Mongolia I stayed in a nomad’s home, which was just a hut called a yurt. We stayed right in their home. The company that I booked with had rented their homes. They were all set up with stoves and places to cook. The nomads actually moved up in some sheds and lived.
Q: What is your most memorable hunt?
RC: I’ve had so many great hunts. It would be hard to pick one because I’ve had so many. When I think back, the polar bear hunting was quite exciting. My first elephant hunt was a PAC elephant—a problem animal control elephant—and we were hunting those at night. That was probably the one that stands out more than anything because the elephants had raided and killed some villagers earlier when they ran through their homes. We were over there trying to take these problem animal control elephants. Since then, I’ve done some really nice trophy hunts on elephants.
Q: Do you have a favorite firearm?
RC: For my own use, I think the .300 Ultra Mag. is the best rifle made. A gun maker in West Virginia is who builds my rifles. We use a 180-grain Scirocco. You can take about everything with that cartridge. I shot my polar bear with it. You name it—lions, leopards—everything but a Cape buffalo, elephant and rhino. I use a .416 on those. But most everything else you can handle with a .300 Ultra Mag. The way we’ve got it shooting 2 ½ inches high at 100 yards, it only drops eight inches at 400 yards. I’ve taken all of my grand slam sheep with it—everything except the really heavy animals.
Q: Can you talk about your efforts with the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation to reintroduce elk in North Carolina?
RC: Right now the elk are surviving well in the mountains of North Carolina. We got involved in this about 10 years ago. I gave a five-year commitment that we would hold the fundraisers to raise the money to bring the elk back, to do the surveys, and work with the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission. Right now we have a real sustainable herd in the mountains of North Carolina. I want my grandchildren and their kids to be able to hear elk bugle. I think elk were last in North Carolina in the early- to mid-1800s. To be involved in bringing them back really makes you feel proud.
In addition to what we’ve done in North Carolina, I’ve got a ranch in Montana and we put it in a conservation easement. The Yellowstone elk herd works its way down through there in the winter, and they won’t be disturbed coming across our land because there won’t be anything built there.
Q: Do you get a chance to go to Montana very often to hunt on your ranch?
RC: Yes, I go every chance I get. Every time we race on the West coast I go out there. I’ve actually got two ranches now. I’ve got one in Custer, Mont., and I’ve got one in Emigrant, Mont. I love the bird hunting out there. I’ve taken my grandkids elk hunting and mule deer hunting. That’s a big pleasure, as is taking friends hunting there.
Q: On the RCR campus you have a 47,000 square foot racing museum. The center of the museum is dedicated to wildlife and wildlife conservation. What hunting-related items do you have on display there?
RC: We have most of my North American 29 on display in there. We have an area when you come in called the wildlife conservation area. As you come in we have four different areas to look at. We have displays for Ducks Unlimited, the National Wild Turkey Federation, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, and the North Carolina Wildlife Habitat Foundation, and we are putting in an NRA display within the month. We’ll have it in before the May race [at Charlotte], that’s when we get a lot of people here. We take a dollar off of every ticket and at the end of the year we divide it between those four groups, and now it’ll be divided between the five groups.
Q: Why did you decide to include that display in your museum?
RC: Back in the ‘80s, after I had done a hunt and NASCAR wrote an article on it, I got some bad press at the time. They were saying things like, ‘We’re not going to go buy a Chevrolet again.’ Stuff like that. I decided that I wasn’t going to let a very small minority of people take me away from what I enjoyed sharing with other people. So I wanted to put my animals on display. I wanted to be able to share that with the public. Even when we put the display in there were questions of how it would be accepted. It has been accepted probably as much or more than the automobile museum. We get a lot of schools that come for day trips just to see the wildlife museum.
But back in the day it was only a very few people who were against it. Even in today’s world we still have those groups and people that don’t realize how important the hunting industry is for conservation and the things they get to enjoy. If you look at what the Pittman-Robertson Act does, everybody gets to enjoy wildlife and nature from that. And it wouldn’t be there if it wasn’t for hunters.
Q: Your long-time driver and friend Dale Earnhardt was also passionate about hunting and wildlife. Do you have any favorite memories of hunting with Dale Earnhardt?
RC: I’ve got many, many of those. Probably some of the elk hunts we went on out West were some of my favorite hunts. One time we had what we called “The Great Horse Wreck” up on the mountain. That’s probably one of the more memorable trips I had with Dale. One of the horses got on some ice and slipped over backwards and knocked me off the mountain. I fell a pretty good ways—probably 40 or 50 feet. I busted my nose up and hurt my ribs pretty bad, but I kept going, and we both ended up getting elk after almost getting killed up there.
Q: What are you looking forward to most about the start of the 2010 Sprint Cup season?
RC: Our plans are to pick up as we ended the season. We ended up the season really on a strong run. I’m just excited about getting started back and making sure that our cars are as good as they ever were.
.jpg "Childress killed this rhino on one of his many trips to Africa. (Richard Childress Collection)")
Q: Is it difficult to find time to get away from the track to hunt?
RC: It is difficult, but now that I’ve been in the sport for so long, I’ve gotten where the first of the year I book out my times that I’m going hunting. We’re going to Argentina dove hunting this year. We’re going to Africa in the fall. I’m going back to Mongolia this year to get a Gobi Desert Sheep. So I’ve booked those and I’ll miss some races. I never missed any races for almost 20 years, but now I book my hunting where I know I’m going to get that in.
Q: How and when did you become involved with the NRA?
RC: Wayne LaPierre and Kayne Robinson, I met them in Charlotte at some of the racing events down there. The Charlotte Motor Speedway is a big supporter of the NRA, and that’s how I met them. We got to talking and when Wayne asked me if I’d be interested in running for the NRA Board, I told him that I would be honored. It’s been one of the biggest honors I’ve had. I’ve been on several boards and still am, and I think being on the NRA Board and the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation’s board are two of the biggest pleasures I have when it comes to being on a board.
Q: What do you feel is the biggest threat to hunters’ rights today?
RC: I think some of the groups that are out there are some of our higher risks. I think some of our politicians, there’s a few of them that would like to see things change. I think that it’s no different than the laws that are being put in place in California and some of the other states to ban lead ammunition. That’s a challenge. These are things that we’ve got to stop because if they get in a little ways, they’ll just keep getting deeper.
Q: What do you see as the key one or two things that we need to do as a hunting community to ensure that hunting remains strong for future generations?
RC: I think the number one thing is keeping our youth interested, keeping our youth in the outdoors. To preserve our hunting future, we have to keep this era of young children involved in hunting.
Q: The NRA Annual Meetings will be in Charlotte in mid-May. Are you looking forward to those meetings and do you have anything special planned?
RC: I’m really excited about it. A lot of the racing community is from that area, and getting as many of those folks at our meetings is going to be phenomenal. I also think some of the speakers this year are going to be terrific. I think the new program the NRA has put together for the military and our people in the services is just a great step in the right direction. I couldn’t be more proud to be a part of it. In today’s world, it’s more important than ever to protect our Second Amendment. I hope we can reach out to our fans that aren’t outdoorsmen and hunters and get them involved, too.
